We're minimizing the staggering speedup of jobs at the top by labeling it "a woman's problem." Rather, it's the predictable and unavoidable result of the increasing inequality of the American economy.
Anne-Marie Slaughter, former Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton, and, more recently, first female director of policy planning at the United States Department of State, has written an article called "Why Women Still Can't Have It All" for this issue of the Atlantic. "Why Women Can't" seems, at first, to be just the latest in the Atlantic's bottomless supply of articles about the toll of modern feminism. (See also: "All the Single Ladies," "How Serfdom Saved the Women's Movement,"and "The End of Men.")
Unlike the other critics, Slaughter is neither a stay-at-home mom nor a professional critic, which makes her piece more interesting than the usual self-justifying offerings. She actually held jobs, used her skills and education to get ahead, took opportunities when they arose, and ascended to a very high position indeed. It is fair to ask, then, why she is complaining. The precipitating event is not the usual decision to quit all gainful employment and stay home with her babies (despite the deceptive illustration that accompanies the article), but rather, her decision to leave State and return to the self-described easier, more forgiving world of academic life.
Having finally had a job in the hard-charging world of high careerism, however, Slaughter has seen the light about why women, especially mothers, want to opt out: The demands, especially the hours, are just too great. But Slaughter is wrong. Despite her extraordinary confession that her "further government service would be very unlikely while my [teenage] sons were still at home," what she saw was not a woman's problem. She saw a problem with the entire structure of American working life. And it's misleading and destructive to portray it as something particular to women.